The Asia Pacific (APAC) data centre market continues to grow and stay resilient despite the pandemic, led by the increased physical presence of hyperscale operators in the region.
The market is expected to also increase in the deployment of edge data centres post 2022 due to the growth in the use of connected devices among businesses and consumers, said global analysts ResearchandMarkets in their forecast of the data centre colocation market in APAC 2020-2025.
The APAC data centre colocation market by revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 8% during the period 2019-2025.
Telecom operators in China are expected to lead the way with the construction of edge data centres. Major data centre providers, including hyperscale providers, are likely to invest in edge data centre infrastructure during the forecast period. The colocation demand is also aiding in the growth of services such as cloud connectivity, interconnection, and hybrid infrastructure services.
Adopting cloud connectivity solutions will grow at a CAGR of 40% in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
Chinese data centre colocation service providers such as GDS Services, Tenglong Holding, ChinData, Shanghai Athub, and 21Vianet invest billions of dollars towards new facility development.
Throughout the APAC region, there are more than 50 data centre projects with a power capacity of more than 10 MW. GDS Holding invested in more than 15 facilities that were opened and under construction in 2019, with an estimated power capacity of 240 MW.
New entrants are fuelling the need for hyperscale facilities in APAC, including Chayora, SpaceDC, Yotta Infrastructure, Regal Orion, Princeton Digital Group (PDG), and BDx (Big Data Exchange). Existing service providers are expanding their presence across many major markets, namely, AiTrunk (Singapore & Hong Kong), Bridge Data Centres (India), Equinix (India), Colt DCS (India), ST Telemedia (Thailand), and Keppel DC REIT (Indonesia).
Most countries in the APAC region have a low cost of construction, reducing per MW investments to around US$4-5 million for Tier III facilities, except for Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia, where the development cost is higher at over US$7 million for a new project.
